Part iii: Indian tribes from European contact to the era of removal

Whether speaking in a historical context or of the present day, there are many ways to define an American Indian tribe. In its most widely understood form, however, an American Indian tribe is a group of bands, often (though not always) related by family ties, sharing common territories and having a feeling of unity deriving from similarities in culture, frequent friendly contacts, and other shared interests. More or less elaborate types of formal tribal organization may be defined within these basic outlines, but tribal groups can exist and function without them. One important way scholars have defined tribes for the purpose of study is by linguistic group. Many North Carolina tribes disappeared or merged with other groups before their languages were recorded, but word lists, town and tribal names, and other indicators suggest that by the sixteenth century, when European explorers first arrived in the region, native tribes populating North Carolina, both Mississippian and Woodland, comprised three linguistic groups: Iroquoian, Siouan, and Algonquian. The two most prominent Iroquoian tribes were the Cherokee, occupying the Blue Ridge Mountains and regions west and south, and the Tuscarora, occupying the Coastal Plain between Ocracoke Island and Topsail Island inland to the central Piedmont. The Neusioc and Coree, also Iroquoian, occupied the Cape Lookout environs of modern Carteret and Craven Counties.

Tribes of the Siouan linguistic group flourished throughout the central Piedmont, the Pee Dee River Valley, and the Lower Cape Fear region. These tribes included the Cape Fear, Catawba, Keyauwee, Occaneechi, Pee Dee (or Pedee), Saponi, Sissipahaw, Saura (Cheraw), Tutelo, Waxhaw, and Waccamaw peoples. Algonquian tribes settled and hunted the northeastern region of the state, including the Outer Banks north of Ocracoke and the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds inland to the approximate western limit of the Coastal Plain. Representative tribes of the Algonquian group include the Chowanoac, Hatteras, Moratuc, Croatan, Secotan, Pamlico, Roanoke, and Weapemeoc (Yeopim).

Early European explorers and settlers to the land that would become North Carolina documented some of their encounters with the native peoples, providing firsthand descriptions of their appearance and demeanor. In July 1524 Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine navigator, became the first European to report on the characteristics of the Coastal Plain peoples. He described the natives he encountered on Bogue Banks and at the mouth of the Cape Fear River as ‘‘of a russet color,’’ tall, strong, and sporting long black hair worn ‘‘like a little tail.’’ The Indians were at first uneasy but soon became friendly toward the visitors.

The 1584 expedition sent by Sir Walter Raleigh and led by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe was the first group of Englishmen to encounter natives on the Carolina coast. Arriving on Hatteras Island, the explorers were met by a friendly and curious people, with whom they exchanged gifts. The following year, a colony led by Ralph Lane was temporarily established in the region. Through the work of two of its members —scientist Thomas Harriot and artist John White—much information and documentation was gathered about the indigenous people. Reflecting the attitude of virtually all Englishmen of the era, Harriot described a people who were ‘‘very ingenious’’ and yet clearly inferior and in need of being brought ‘‘to civilities.’’ More than a century later, John Lawson, in A New Voyage to Carolina (1709), wrote at great length about the characteristics and customs of the Indians. Lawson’s attitude toward them remained similar to Harriot’s, stressing the need to treat the Indians well in order to encourage them to adopt the ‘‘worthier’’ customs of the English people.

The European discovery and settlement of the Carolina region signaled an era of radical change for local Indians, one marked by the toppling of the previous Indian way of life and a tragic and unrelenting decline in their population. The various strains of European diseases such as smallpox, bubonic plague, typhus, and measles inflicted severe misery upon many Indian tribes, which had no immunity against them. A massive smallpox epidemic in 1695 among the Pamlico Indians, and a similarly devastating outbreak that wiped out nearly half of the Cherokee in 1738, are but two examples of the deadly effects these diseases had on the Indian population.

At the same time that European settlement brought violent conflict between whites and Indians, it also increased the occurrence of warfare between Indian tribes. There were several factors influencing these hostilities. Many historians have concluded that a central cause of the problem was trade between the natives and the newcomers. Initially, there is evidence to suggest that North Carolina’s native peoples worked and lived cooperatively with the Europeans, teaching them agricultural techniques for corn, tobacco, and other cultivation as well as fishing and other necessary survival skills. In return, the white settlers offered the Indians manufactured goods from their homeland. But this trade led to a massive upheaval in both the ways Indians related to each other and how they came to view the white settlers. The introduction of these items resulted in the Indians’ becoming increasingly reliant on products such as metal knives, hoes, and hatchets as well as guns and ammunition. The acceptance of these effective new tools and other trade products made them vulnerable to manipulation by white traders and colonial authorities, who often turned one native tribe against another for political, economic, or other purposes. Many unscrupulous white traders also charged unfairly high prices for their wares, giving rise to ill feelings among natives that often led to conflict.

Furthermore, providing the Europeans with commodities that they needed—not only products like deerskins but also Indian slave labor—caused tremendous competition among Indian tribes and often resulted in violence between them. The pressure exerted on the Indian population by the constant expansion of European settlements also caused many hostile acts on both parts. The Tuscarora War of 1711–13 represented an early pinnacle of Indian resistance against European encroachment. At the outbreak of this conflict, the Tuscarora were the most powerful tribe in the eastern portion of North Carolina, with alliances that stretched both northward and southward into what are now Virginia and South Carolina. After German and Swiss colonists founded New Bern on the Neuse River in Tuscarora lands, the Tuscarora, led by Chief Hancock, attacked the town and nearby settlements in September 1711. The Tuscarora warriors killed 120 colonists and captured others, destroyed houses and barns, and confiscated crops and livestock. For the next year and a half, many individual battles occurred, sparked by both sides, until the Tuscarora were finally defeated at the village of Neoheroka in March 1713. The long conflict took a severe toll on the Tuscarora, and surviving tribal members who chose to remain in North Carolina were forced onto a reservation near Lake Mattamuskeet, in what is today Hyde County. Over time, many of these southern Tuscarora traveled to New York and Canada to join the Iroquois Confederacy.

The defeat and subsequent relocation of the Tuscarora resulted in even greater westward expansion of white settlements during the eighteenth century. This expansion led to increased conflict with the inland tribes, particularly the Cherokee, with more than 40 towns and six times as many people as the Tuscarora, occupying the mountainous lands of southwestern North Carolina as well as parts of what are now eastern Tennessee, South Carolina, northern Georgia, and northeastern Alabama. During the French and Indian War (1754–63) the Cherokee sided with the French, and they later sided with the British in the American Revolution as a result of a royal proclamation that prohibited colonial settlement in the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. Many colonists consequently considered the Cherokee hostile, and assaults on Cherokee towns became exceedingly brutal. Cherokee fields and storehouses were often destroyed, and many Cherokees were left to starve.

Through the latter part of the eighteenth century, the Cherokee and the other native people of the Carolinas were compelled by force or by treaty to cede much of their land to white settlers. Adjusting to these extreme circumstances, many Indians adopted aspects of Western culture, creating schools, churches, businesses, and forms of governance that would be recognized by non-Indians. Most famous among these efforts was the development of a written language, or syllabary, by the Cherokee Sequoyah. Despite these changes and the positive impression they might have had on whites, Indian land remained a target of white desire, and the concept of removing Indians to western lands continued to gain support. In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which opened the way for North Carolina and other states to force the Cherokee and their neighbors to relocate. Removal of the Cherokee people to present-day Oklahoma began in May 1838, and approximately 4,000 Cherokee people died on the infamous Trail of Tears to their new home. Nevertheless, some Indian people remained in North Carolina, maintaining a distinct cultural identity and autonomy in the face of enormous challenges. The largest of these remaining groups, known as the Oconaluftee Cherokee, claimed North Carolina citizenship rather than membership in the Cherokee Nation, and therefore avoided removal. The Oconaluftee Cherokee eventually constituted what became the modern Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Comments

Hello, Thank you for posting this information. I am beginning to trace my family history on my Mothers side and only have a lot of stories about her grandmother and grandmother being Native American (no proof) they were both born in Ashe Co. North Carolina in the Late 1700's and early 1800's then moved to the Cumberland Mountains in Tennessee and the Knoxville area. Was there a big Native American presence in Ashe Co. in the late 1700's ? Is Ashe Co. what now is Asheville, NC ?

Thanks for visiting this entry and taking time to share your questions.

First, Asheville is actually in Buncombe County, which is in the south central portion of the mountains of North Carolina. Ashe county is at the northern end of the western mountains, bordering Tennessee and Virginia.

Here is a link to another NCpedia article on Native American history. If you scroll down you'll see map showing the distribution of tribes around 1700 -- http://ncpedia.org/american-indians/european-contact. The map indicates that the western mountain region was inhabited primarily by the Cherokee.

Here another link to a resource at the NC Museum of History. This page includes a map that also shows the Tutelo circa 1700, inhabiting the northern region of the Blue Ridge in the area that is today Ashe County.

The area that is now North Carolina was explored and settled primarily by English-speaking people from the British Isles, so Native Americans would have been exposed primarily to English. However, French Huegenots also explored and settled in North Carolina and the region, exposing Native tribes to French as well. Areas from South Carolina southward into Florida had greater Spanish settlement with some French settlement.

If you would like to learn more, I am connecting you in email with our reference librarians here at the Government & Heritage Library who can help you find additional resources.

Add a comment

PLEASE NOTE: NCpedia will not publish personal contact information in comments, questions, or responses. If you would like a reply by email, please note thats some email servers are blocked from accepting messages from outside email servers or domains. These often include student email addresses from public school email accounts. If you prefer not to leave an email address, check back at your NCpedia comment for a reply. Please allow one business day for replies from NCpedia. Complete guidelines are available at http://ncpedia.org/comments.